


peripheral

by Elendraug



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Clothed Sex, Frottage, Hand Jobs, In Vino Veritas, M/M, Post-Canon, Trust, references to canon-typical depressing shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:42:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25246324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elendraug/pseuds/Elendraug
Summary: No need to speak; I found the place to rest my head.
Relationships: Trowa Barton/Heero Yuy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19
Collections: Bringin' Gundam Wing Back





	peripheral

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flecksofpoppy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/gifts), [torch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/torch/gifts), [szgrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/szgrey/gifts), [superdeath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/superdeath/gifts).



> for flecksofpoppy: I'm so glad you’re still out there. thanks for giving me something to come back to, 20 years later, once I realized what it was I really wanted to read. I'm very excited to check out your new stuff too
> 
> for deads, whose art kept me motivated while writing this: [1](https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/73358732) | [2](https://elendraug.tumblr.com/post/622499346430246912/null-physical-ha-ha) | [3](https://twitter.com/nullphy/status/1270561582259539968)
> 
> for torch, whose 1x3 fics I've barely resisted reading but am SO READY to dive into now that I've finished this, haha
> 
> to my friends who returned to this fandom with me: I'm honored to be here with you guys, I love this show with all my heart <3
> 
> shout-out to the alphasmart neo 2 for making it possible to write this without constant distractions
> 
> and finally, brought to you by chloe pinot grigio, nau mai sauvignon blanc, and curbside pickup. stay safe out there
> 
> ♫ [A*TEENS - around the corner of your eye](https://youtu.be/xQm5X6oKMXE)  
> ♫ [florence + the machine - never let me go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMBTvuUlm98)  
> ♫ [depeche mode - enjoy the silence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGSKrC7dGcY)
> 
> my heavyarms hoodie finally arrived today and I’m stoked about it

“They’ll do something flashy next year, but no one ever celebrates the ninth anniversary of anything.”

Heero raises an empty glass and holds it steady in mid-air, patient as Trowa unscrews the cap with enough pressure to break the seal and pours pinot grigio first for him, then for himself. “That gives us another year to avoid it.”

Trowa grants him a Gioconda smile, the same one he’s reserved for these moments since they first departed Sicily with the final shots unfired and Heero’s frame intact. It’s worlds apart from the brushstroked Glasgow smile he wears while dodging knives onstage. “We’re celebrating already. You’re at the greatest show on Earth.”

“Or any inhabited place.” Heero settles back against the couch cushions, pliable from use but still supportive. With disposable income up and the specter of wartime stress not yet dissipated, the circus has attendance enough to afford various upgrades to their living conditions, along with the population at large. New human attractions allowed for phasing the animals out, and Relena’s influence sectioned out a preserve in the former Sanc Kingdom; for his participation in peacekeeping, Trowa hadn’t asked for any accolades.

Trowa sits beside him in the space Heero’s now far more willing to accommodate, balancing his wine glass on his own knee, his fingertips barely gracing the stem. The cool LED can lights in the trailer offset the last rays of Sicilian sunlight streaming through the window opposite the couch, the implication of warmth bathing the wine bottle and the refracted image it projects onto the coffee table, the environment echoing remnants of Heero’s recovery within this same room layout.

“What should we toast to?” Trowa asks, studying Heero sidelong, maintaining the drink’s balance as his breathing shifts his knee near imperceptibly.

Heero regards him, and where others would see hostility, Trowa acknowledges the careful assessment as he forms the phrasing of his statement. “Seems like you have one in mind.”

Trowa exhales, mentally measures the temporary loss of oxygen as if entering through an airlock. “I do.”

Without another word, Heero lifts his glass, turning towards Trowa to reach with his right hand; his left arm will never be as stable again.

“To comets,” Trowa says, cryptic as an empty grave, awaiting an observer’s expectations to fill in the anticipated sentiment, all certainty exhumed. He lifts his glass from his knee, leaning with his left hand to mirror the movement, indulging improvised choreography and a flight of fancy to invoke an image of Heavyarms depleted of its ammunition.

Heero nods, accepting it on its own terms, allowing himself to be unworried with demanding exposition when it was spoken with conviction by someone he trusts.

The light clink of glass interaction is far from the destructive shatter of superstructures subjected to gunfire and worse; it’s the pulled punch, the traversed tightrope, the sharp turn away from the steep shoulder. Heero tosses back a sizable swig, and Trowa matches him in volume but at a smoother pace; it’s sawtooth alongside sinusoid, resonant frequencies with variant approach and the same ultimate outcome. At the end of the day, they would both choose substance over style, but the methodology has always been left up to their impulses and discretion.

Heero exists in what may be something of a blind spot, obscured by bangs maintained at a slightly less striking length that still challenges his depth perception, that invites proprioception to take precedence, but Heero’s on the short list of those implicitly permitted to inhabit it.

Trowa follows the movement of Heero’s wrist as he lifts the glass to his lips a second time in quick succession to down the rest of his drink. A trickle of wine drips along the stem and lands on his tank top (this one a colexified blue-green, but a similar garment) and darkens the spot to a color that recalls murky seawater.

“Do your knees hurt?” Heero asks, his focus moving from the drained glass to Trowa’s face.

“Yeah, sometimes.” Trowa drinks the remainder of his wine to keep up, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before setting the glass on the coffee table. “Don’t yours?”

Heero reaches for a dishtowel pulling double duty as a napkin and wipes off his glass before it joins Trowa’s on the table. “Yeah.”

The bottle has plenty more to go, but they leave it be for the moment. There’s future potential within it, enough to ease tension but not erase savoring the situation.

“You need to stretch,” Trowa suggests, generally, a plain statement of the obvious but one often overlooked.

Heero laces his fingers together, palms turned outward, and does so until his elbows give a satisfying crack of release. Trowa’s eyes are on his arms again, at the slightly exposed juncture of his chest and shoulder, just visible through the opening of his shirt.

“Keep that up and you’ll put the big cats to shame.”

“I don’t sleep nearly as much.”

Trowa laughs, earnest, unguarded, susceptible to it in a way historically only Heero evokes. “No, you don’t.”

Heero looks to the wine bottle and smiles so briefly that any lapse in attention would miss it.

“They really are big cats,” Trowa notes. “Receiving a slow blink from a lion is a show of trust. They could kill you but choose not to. For that moment, they’re vulnerable.”

“Like handing off your self-detonation device,” Heero offers, with the implications left unspoken.

“Or resting for a month in a room someone put you in while you recovered,” Trowa adds. “Hypothetically.”

“Or taking a direct hit from a Buster Rifle and taking the self-detonation device out of the cards entirely, to keep someone from killing himself several times over.” Heero leans forward and puts his hand on the bottle, hovering, hesitating before replacing the cap and settling back on the couch, buzzing. “And freezing half to death in the void of space in his stead, out of reach of search parties.”

Trowa gives him his closest approximation of a grin, tilting his head to tip his bangs towards the back of the couch, not quite touching the cushion with his cheek.

Heero braces his elbow against the back of the couch and rests his temple against the heel of his hand. Without any change in intonation, he levels his gaze at Trowa through the ineffective shield of his hair. “Hypothetically.”

“I was so sure you were dead when I picked you up,” Trowa says, angling the anecdote towards absurdity in lieu of tragedy. “But I couldn’t just leave you there. Call it sentimental if you want.”

Heero pulls his legs up onto the couch and shifts his weight, just enough for Trowa to feel it in the adjacent cushion. “It’s pretty sentimental.”

Trowa glances to Heero’s knees, their bodies barely separated by a scant distance across the upholstery. Even after a near decade, and no reason to think he’d have to hop into a mobile suit at a moment’s notice, Heero’s most comfortable in shorts, and even in December, there’s no cause for concern when wintering in the Mediterranean.

“I’ve now gone by ‘Trowa’ longer than anything else.” He draws his legs up onto the couch to mimic Heero’s posture, to draw attention away from the change of subject. “ _That’s_ something else.”

Heero glances down to the denim pulled taut across Trowa’s kneecaps. “A few more years and you’ll have been Trowa Barton longer than the original.”

Trowa watches Heero watching him. “How long until you’re Heero Yuy longer than he was?”

There’s a huff of breath just shy of a laugh; a beat; a contemplation. “You think we’ll live that long?”

Trowa drifts closer, easily attributed to repositioning on the furniture, measured as a fraction of an inch. “We’ll do what we always do: wait and see what the best course of action should be.”

“And then act on it.”

“Of course.”

Heero readjusts to rest his head directly on the couch cushion and allows his left arm to fall between them, resting his right on his own knee. His bangs don’t hide his features quite as much, but they approach the same effect.

“We’re both dead men walking.” Trowa keeps completely still, hyperaware of the proximity of his pantlegs to Heero’s upturned fingertips. “My namesake was supposed to avenge yours but didn’t want to.”

“Would you?” Heero asks, nonspecific, eyes on Trowa’s obfuscated face.

Trowa feels Heero shift his weight again. “Hm?”

“Would you avenge me?”

Trowa laughs, surprised by how deeply he’s _not_ uncomfortable with the line of questioning, but avoids answering too quickly.

The sun’s descent has gradually directed its beams into Heero’s pupils, and there’s a plausible deniability in it as well when he blinks slowly against the light. There’s less when he leaves his eyes closed, lashes still, audibly exhaling.

Trowa takes his hand.

“I almost avenged you, but I passed out before I could.” Heero opens his eyes just enough to watch as Trowa circles his thumb over the hand he used to shield his face, as he helps relax a trigger finger that gripped the controls too tightly for too long. “Probably for the best.”

Trowa watches Heero staring as he moves on to his middle finger. “Probably, yeah.”

“I remember you reading to me.” Heero allows the weight of his hand to rest entirely in Trowa’s hold. “Hegel. In German.”

“It took the whole month to get through it.” Trowa uses both of his hands to press his thumbs into Heero’s palm, to ease away the constant grasping of a Gundam’s joystick and replace it if only temporarily with the lessened tension of entwined fingers. He stops trying to prevent himself from smiling. “Catherine thought it was a miracle that you woke up. It was putting her to sleep.”

Heero smiles back. “I had to live long enough to refute him.”

Trowa lets out a laugh, not quite under his breath, and moves from ring finger to pinky with one hand, supporting his hand with the other. “We wouldn’t be the first to point out he’s wrong about materialism. Of _course_ our physical existence informs our perception of ideas.”

Heero looks up from their hands. “Is this informing your ideas?”

“Yeah. I’ve got some ideas.” Trowa smiles at him for a brief moment, then averts his gaze to jump from pinky to thumb, then to his wrist, and he can’t differentiate whose pulse he’s most aware of. “Thesis, antithesis, and synthesis are their own waltz, aren’t they?”

It’s rhetorical, so Heero doesn’t answer it, and speaks softly. “Your voice was soothing.”

The tension from Heero’s hand transfers, manifests instead at the nape of Trowa’s neck, in his jaw. He swallows the lingering taste of dry wine. “I liked reading to you.”

Heero finally flexes his fingertips, traces his short nails over Trowa’s tendons where the cuff of his sweater covers carpal tunnel.

“When we retired the animals to the sanctuary, they didn’t know what to do at first.” Trowa pushes his thumb into Heero’s pulse point and counts, the same way he had when he was convalescing, almost a ritual. “Sometimes our circumstances improve, but we’re so accustomed to living on someone else’s schedule, we’re thrown by suddenly not being expected to do anything for anyone but ourselves.”

“You took care of them.” Heero trails his fingertips into Trowa’s sleeve, just beneath the cuff, just enough to keep his fingers snugly against the skin of his wrist. “You did the right thing.”

“I did what I could. I can’t give them the life they should’ve had: never taken from their families, or safe in a natural habitat that no longer exists.” Trowa follows the motion of his thumb on Heero’s arm, as if the metronomic movement could restore regularity to his respiration. “But at least they can live their remaining years in peace. I want that much for them.”

There’s silence, save for the sound of their breathing, and Heero remains in the quiet for a while before breaking it. “What do you want for you?”

Trowa exhales, faster than he intends to, and meets Heero’s eyes, well aware that the intensity of his focus is not ill-intentioned. He slides his right hand forward and clasps Heero’s wrist tightly enough for him to feel his pulse in his palm, still supporting Heero’s hand from beneath with his left. “I like being nameless with you.”

He watches the statement register in Heero’s expression for the first few seconds, then throws himself into the uncertainty of the moment, his absolute confidence in Heero even more powerful than his reliance upon the acrobatic precautions taken by the traveling circus with no consistent title that’s become his permanent home.

Trowa closes his eyes, and for that moment he’s vulnerable, waiting for the danger of uncertainty to pass into a resolved conclusion. He exhales again, shakier despite himself, in the liminal space between performances, in the literal blink of an eye.

The resolution comes as Heero pushes the sweater sleeve back and grips his forearm in return, interlocked, for two people unaccustomed to handshakes and creating their own improvised social graces. Spatial awareness has always been his forte, and by the time Heero’s raised his right hand to brush Trowa’s bangs aside, Trowa’s already lifted his chin and tilted towards the touch.

Trowa opens his eyes, half-lidded, self-conscious of the fidgeting he’s fending off, of resisting the urge to idly chew his lip.

Heero’s hand lands on his shoulder, holding his deltoid; the camaraderie and the closeness are not mutually exclusive. His thumb seeks out the ridge of Trowa’s collarbone within the red wool of his crewneck, and when he speaks, Trowa can feel the words fall on his face. “I like that, too.”

Trowa counts Heero’s heartbeats beneath his hand, sturdy in his hold but gentle enough to safeguard the healed damage in his radius and ulna. There’s a weightlessness to it, tethered to his hold as if spacewalking, tracking each breath he takes from a limited supply of time. But he knows, as he tips his head, as Heero’s face draws nearer, he knows they’re well-matched and moving in tandem, as synchronized as the Vayeate and Mercurius, cut from the same cloth long before they knew what they would be fashioned into.

Trowa meets him halfway when Heero closes the distance to kiss him, and the weightlessness gives way to the grounded reassurance of gravity, as they settle into the softness of breathing the same air and brushing their mouths together. They both shift closer, supported by the back of the couch, knees nudged to replace the briefly lost contact as they separate their hands to reach elsewhere. Heero brings both of his hands around to rest on Trowa’s back, over the burn scars that Trowa can’t explain, and Trowa in turn rests his hands on Heero’s shoulders, over the burn scars that Heero can, both explosions propelling them forward to where their lives would take them like two shots fired, like two shuttles launched to descend to Earth.

Without observation, without expectations, it’s enough to bask in the simple intimacy of keeping close, in setting aside years of isolation to indulge long-denied comfort. The heady warmth of physical proximity had sparked in Antarctica, huddled with winter coats and the visible heat of rapidly cooling coffee, aching for places nearer the equator, where temperatures would not exacerbate the pain of half-healed fractures. It spread like an electrical fire, faint while within the walls he’d constructed, settling at his solar plexus as Trowa found himself wanting to do Heero favors, sustained by the genuine gratitude, whether lifting a dropped disk in France or alleviating the weight of weaponry within Barclay Base. It persisted while the other pilots were imprisoned, arcing in shared glances enough to communicate complexity and assure mutual survival, and maybe the thrill of trust from his teammate had let his guard down when Heero assured him he’d known Trowa was on his side all the while, enough to dispel precautions when approaching the prototype. Its current carried him back to Peacemillion, ghosting through the synapses struggling to summon sentences from long-term storage, scent memory of soup and sterile bandages, of acting on emotions. It stayed with him as static and petrichor, the oncoming premonition of a storm signalling the eventual presence of the lightning strikes; even when wind is without thunder, there’s an association drawn, and he’s waited all the while for the sky to fill with sound.

Trowa tangles his fingers in the strap of Heero’s tank top, knuckles brushed against his collarbone, and Heero extends his right leg to cross it over Trowa’s where they’re bent beneath him. There’s novelty in the nearness, already intimately familiar with the ways their bodies have been hurt, but unaccustomed to freely given affection.

Trowa raises his left hand to brush his own bangs out of his face, and Heero follows the movement to thread his fingers into his hair and keep it pushed back from his forehead as he leans in to kiss above his eyebrow. Trowa sighs, soothed, and ducks his head to sigh a second time against the underside of Heero’s jawline.

Heero lets out a contented sound, shifting towards him, and Trowa can feel him getting hard as Heero half-straddles his thigh.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Trowa breathes.

Heero runs his right hand up through the shorter strands of hair at the back of Trowa’s head. “So do it.”

It’s an invitation to touch him, simultaneously verbal and unspoken, and Trowa has no intention of doing anything to disrupt it. He lowers his left hand to rest at Heero’s ribs, some part of his mind forever checking him for injury as he brushes his fingers over bones reminiscent of Deathscythe Hell, both of them rebuilt after destruction. He moves in through the shirt’s opening to run his thumb over his nipple and return his attention to kissing his collarbone. The compression shorts must have been a deliberate decision, a new set acquired years after the initial outfit was worn beneath a flight suit; the immediate breathlessness confirms it as Heero leans in towards him, rocking his hips down against Trowa’s leg.

Trowa wedges his knee further up between Heero’s thighs to encourage him and provide a surface to grind against. Heero continues to thread his fingers through Trowa’s hair until the heat of his mouth on his throat is too much, too ticklish. He brings his fingertips back beneath Trowa’s chin, coaxing him upward, and Trowa allows Heero to adjust the incline of his neck as smoothly as if he were an experimental mobile suit for him to test pilot, entrusted to capable hands.

Heero kisses him again, then pulls back briefly to lick his lips for the length of a nervous inhalation. Trowa waits, doesn’t push, wouldn’t dream to, and revels in the warmth working its way through him, a blend of alcohol and arousal, but far heavier on the latter. He closes his eyes, notes the passing seconds in passes of his thumb over Heero’s pectoral, and does nothing to still the shiver that rushes through his spine and the set of his shoulders when Heero completes the circuit another time, and this time with his lips slightly parted.

Trowa shifts from stroking to lightly pinching, and keeps his mouth relaxed, feels his dick twitch when he darts his tongue past his lips just enough to touch the tip to Heero’s. As he feels his nipple stiffen beneath his fingertips, he wants to put his tongue on it, too, and makes a sound that much closer to a moan as he presses his thigh between Heero’s.

Heero settles his weight in such a way to hold Trowa’s thigh directly against his erection save for the thin layer of stretch fabric between his body and Trowa’s jeans. He bites lightly at Trowa’s bottom lip before angling his head to touch their tongues together again. It’s easy to escalate, enabled by the solid foundation Trowa’s offering for him to rub himself against; he strokes his knuckles along Trowa’s jawline as he continues kissing him, expertly attuned to the parameters with which his own body functions, and well aware of Trowa’s reciprocal response.

Trowa reaches up with his right arm, his elbow digging into the back of the couch, and relocates his hand from Heero’s shoulder to slide his fingers into his hair and contour to the curve of his skull. It’s not that the kissing is rougher in terms of force, but rather in an approximation, less fixated on the finer details and able to ease into an effortless alternation of bringing their mouths together and brief moments of breathing.

Heero runs his fingertips down Trowa’s throat to touch his collarbone through the open access of his neckline. Trowa in turn gives him one last brush of his thumb over his nipple before extracting his hand and externally raking his fingertips over Heero’s shirt, light enough not to catch, firm enough to be felt. For his efforts he hears Heero moan into his mouth, feels his abs tighten in response, receives another thrust against his thigh. Trowa smiles, temporarily unable to kiss him for his reflexive reaction to every sound of pleasure he’s drawn from him. He watches through half-lidded eyes for the subtle hints of urgency that flicker across Heero’s expression as he skates his hand lower to where their bodies are touching, where loose cotton overlaps taut material, until his knuckles nudge the head of his cock enough to press precome into the polyester, seeping a darker spot in black fabric beneath his fingertips.

Heero’s breath catches and he tucks his head to Trowa’s shoulder, tangled up with him, a mess of limbs losing circulation and bent at awkward angles into the couch cushions. Trowa palms him, presses a kiss into his hair as his hips push forward, as he maps out the terrain with every thrust into his hand. Each shaky exhalation against his throat further narrows his focus, tunnel vision locked to the rise and fall of Heero’s back with his breathing, feeling his own pulse in his ears and constricted just shy of unpleasantly within his jeans.

“Fuck,” Heero sighs, before sitting up.

Trowa watches him, in awe of him, even still. The loss of warmth is less like Antarctica than the void, suspended and supine, in shadow until Heero reaches over to retrieve the wine and Trowa is instead in the path of the sun’s rays, well on its way to twilight, as he’s poised alternately within the two temperature extremes of space.

The shirt hangs off Heero; its size fits better, now, but he’s still slight, and sunlight skims the slope of his spine like a solar flare. He uncaps the bottle and lifts it to his lips, drinking enough to address dry mouth. He clicks his tongue when he’s done and glances to Trowa, who’s never taken his eyes off him.

Heero offers him the bottle, and Trowa takes it, takes his own sip to slake the thirst from kissing, then passes it back to be recapped and replaced on the table. While Heero attends to the wine, Trowa rearranges his legs on the couch, slides his hand into his jeans, and adjusts himself within his underwear to align along his abdomen instead of towards his pantleg.

When he looks back up, he finds Heero’s attention fixed firmly on his hand. Trowa smiles at him, a small, shared aspect of himself that few have ever known, and slips his hand back out of his jeans. He grips the hem of his sweater, arches his back to allow himself room to work, and pulls the hem up just enough to expose his stomach briefly before he pulls it back down, smooths it out, and resettles himself on the cushions.

Heero picks up a plastic remote and tries a few buttons until the LED lights dim, leaving them in the lowered light of evening, and leans back over to return to his previous seat. There’s reintroduced tension strung out between them, as Trowa takes a breath, as Heero’s throat moves when he swallows, but Trowa knows how to walk on wires and knows now how to handle this, too. He gathers his courage and every impulse he’s held in, and gathers Heero into his arms to kiss him, lax, lips parted to taste the traces of wine on his tongue.

Heero kisses him back, heady and eager, and follows with his hand the path his eyes took earlier to touch Trowa between his thighs, grasping for definition beneath denim, rewarded with Trowa gasping at the corner of his mouth. Heero grins, and Trowa can feel it against his face as he pushes himself, half-kneeling, into Heero’s steadied hand.

As Heero turns his head to kiss him again, he leans back, easing Trowa down with him, burning like atmospheric descent. He spreads his legs wide enough to accommodate Trowa without sending them toppling to the floor, his left knee bent and leaning against the back of the couch, his right calf hooked over the back of Trowa’s thigh.

Trowa braces himself on his elbows, his fingertips still finding places to play with Heero’s hair as he lowers his hips to sink fully against him. Trowa’s bangs fall forward, brushing against Heero’s forehead where Trowa’s brushed Heero’s hair away from his face. Trowa keeps kissing him, keeps caressing him, and when Heero winds his arms around his back and rolls his hips upward to press their clothed cocks together, it’s Trowa’s turn to agree, breathlessly. 

“Fuck.”

Heero tilts his head back, his eyes nearly closed, still feeling the puff of air from pronouncing a voiceless fricative as Trowa spoke against his skin. He runs his hands down his back, taking in the texture of the sweater, and lets his hands settle on Trowa’s ass, easy to explore through denim cut for a close fit. He moves his hips and his hands in time with Trowa’s thrusting, attuned to the best way to assist the motion, akin to the handful of lessons he took for posting while posing as the sort of student who would ride English style. It’s simpler like this, when he’s able to acclimate to the natural, improvised rhythm they’ve set, to hold tight to his body between his thighs and rock with him, utterly unconcerned with anything else.

Trowa groans against his mouth, from Heero’s hands groping him, from the addictive press of their proximity. He kisses him one more time before he rolls off him to settle beside him and slide down, with his right leg loosely draped over Heero’s shin. Trowa rests his head on Heero’s shoulder, viscerally pleased with the smell of his sweat and the warmth of his skin. He hooks his thumb into the armhole of the shirt and tugs the cloth out of the way, allowing him access to lower his head further and lick Heero’s chest.

Heero shifts to curl his right arm around Trowa’s shoulders, to welcome the advance and to prevent him from falling off the couch. He uses his left hand to untuck his tank top and yank it upward, wordlessly granting Trowa full permission to know him.

Trowa lifts his head to allow the shirt to bunch up beside Heero’s collarbone, well aware that Heero’s staring at his tongue tracing saliva onto his stiffened nipple. He reaches across his ribs to pinch the opposite one and roll it between his fingertips, and every breathy sound Heero makes goes directly to his gut.

In his haziest nightmares, the ones not even Zero could shake loose or adjust into clarity, he has visions of being thrown from a wagon, much the way he was thrown from the Vayeate, but with Heero’s arm around his back, with his fingers stroking down his spine over the snug wool, he feels secure that this time, he won’t fall from a height, that he has nothing he needs to prove. After a lifetime of becoming inured to being displaced, with no choice but to resign himself to isolation as the choice was taken from him time and again, he can choose to amend it now.

Heero rests his right palm on Trowa’s waist, and brings his left hand over to comb Trowa’s hair out of his face. In a rush of admiration, he lowers his left hand to cover Trowa’s right where he’s teasing his chest, pausing his efforts to press his hand flat over his pectoral. Heero folds his fingers around Trowa’s hand, hyperaware of his own accelerated heartbeat, of holding him close, of relief in finding their bodies functional instead of the acrid ache of those killed in action, of a seasoned sniper on the floor of some other space colony, flat on his back with the smell of blood and gunpowder choking the recycled air, of seeing singed fur buried in rubble or a burnt spacesuit floating away, near frictionless, through the vacuum. 

Trowa lifts his head to press a kiss to Heero’s sternum, and basks in the lingering sweetness of their breath after drinking dry wine, the aftertaste of his sweat, the rapid rise and fall of his ribcage beneath Trowa’s ear.

They both exhale fully, together, like cats before settling in for a nap. When Trowa returns to running the tip of his tongue over his nipple, he feels Heero’s hips rise in request, his erection obvious through his shorts, a scant distance from Trowa’s, pressed taut to Heero’s thigh.

Trowa strokes his fingers down Heero’s stomach, gratified by the hitch of his breath as his clipped fingernails graze his navel, as he encircles him and tests the give of his girth. He seeks out sensory input, immersed in their present moment as Heero moans with the pleasure of self-indulgence instead of the pain of self-destruction, back in his bed—so to speak—the way he’d not yet realized he’d wanted him.

Heero lifts his hips to help get himself out of his shorts and into Trowa’s hand completely, skin to skin, with spandex shoved down enough not to snag. He flexes his fingers into Trowa’s sweater, and entrusts everything of himself into his hands once again. Trowa’s slender fingers close around him, with the same hand that worked for weeks to list those who did not deign to destroy him, and Trowa could append himself to the end of it, signed with a numeral or otherwise, after occasions with a gun aimed for him or with alloy digits gripping him tightly and raising him from the scorched earth. He’s laid out and lusting for the same tongue that told lies to save their lives, that spoke reassurances and pulled him back to consciousness in the wake of Siberia’s fallout.

Trowa sucks his nipple into his mouth, grinds against his leg where it’s locked between his thighs, and for a shared while, there’s nothing but the soft sounds of his hand stroking Heero’s cock, his tongue on his chest, and both of them breathing erratically.

When he moves his mouth, he keeps close enough for his exhalations to temper the encroaching evaporation, and asks the question against his skin, his hand somewhat stilled but still firmly grasping his dick enough to feel his pulse thrumming through it.

“Do you want to come like this?” It’s quiet, unassuming, with no judgement.

Heero inhales deeply, arching towards his hand, and glancing to him with half-lidded eyes as he lets it back out. “Yeah.”

Trowa smiles against his chest. “All right.”

Trowa thumbs over the bead of wetness that’s gathered at the head and thrills at how Heero’s cock twitches at the touch, at how his own jumps within his jeans in sympathy. He raises his hand to his lips and licks it away, as a taste of what’s to come. Once his fingertips are slick with spit, he returns to wrap his grip around Heero and resume working him up and working him over. 

Heero grips the back of the couch, sinking into sensation, grateful for upholstery under his palm. There remains a window for them to melt in the sun, like their suits were supposed to, sundered instead by exposing their innards. If he wants to go out with anyone, it’s with him at his side. Few could be entrusted to carry his corpse from Marseilles if Sylvia had taken the offer after all, heavy hearted in Heavyarms again in an unwritten sequence of events that still seemed plausible until leaving Sicily for the south pole.

Trowa moves with him, licking his chest between breaths, and slips his hand between their bodies and the cushions to cup Heero’s ass, to feel his muscles moving as he thrusts into Trowa’s hand, as his fingers glide his foreskin over his glans, sliding precome around with the pad of his thumb, aiming his erection at his abs, eager to watch him shiver through orgasm. 

It’s taken a lifetime to reclaim the right to make noise, and Heero’s embraced crying out as direct address, the “you” understood, the null and the void, and without giving name to an unspoken something like love.

There’s no name to shout for. 

Heero tightens his arm around Trowa’s shoulder as his stomach goes taut, grasping for his sweat-soaked sweater as the garment became literal, digging his heels into the couch to brace himself as his toes curl and he spurts onto his stomach, his come pooling in his navel, coating Trowa’s fist as he keeps his hand moving, coaxing him through the full extent of his release and lingering to feel him throbbing within his touch, oversensitive and flooded with oxytocin.

Trowa shifts up to rest his forehead on Heero’s shoulder, leaving his hand in place as Heero holds him and pets his hair, as they both gradually regain control of their breathing, as Heero’s hardness subsides and it takes gentle squeezing to guide the residual droplets of semen out.

Inside Wing Zero in flashes of divergent consciousness they’d seen every eventuality, had both flown it expertly, and whether with the weight of feathers or lead, they’re both struck now with the impact of their joint potential outcomes branching from this moment.

Trowa’s still thrumming with the afterimage of Heero clinging to him as he comes, the feel of him in his hand, the smell of his sweat in his hair, the taste of his flushed skin, the glimpse of his features as he climaxed. He’s still hard, but vicariously satiated, and gratified to construct this gift together. There’s companionship in the shared process of caring for themselves, like restoring their own machines; within his history with Heavyarms, he learned its inner workings before it was ever his, and through mutual agreement he allowed Heero to have it, knowing that Wing and Zero respectively were waiting for him should he need them.

Within reach and without dislodging any glass, Trowa successfully fumbles for the dishtowel, reaching over only as long as is necessary before returning himself to Heero’s hold. He wipes his hand on the cloth, then clears away the spunk on Heero’s skin before it can completely cool. He runs his hand over Heero’s chest to check for any spots he missed in the dark, and when he’s satisfied with the cleanup, he drops the balled-up cloth to the floor.

Trowa helps Heero tug his tank top back down, lift his shorts back up, and settles heavily against him to kiss him. He rests his head on his shoulder with one arm draped over his chest and the other holding him beneath his back, in the slight gap between cushions to keep his circulation intact.

“Why comets?” Heero asks.

“Because every so often, we circle back and pass through each other’s orbit.” He smiles. “The whole ‘shooting stars’ situation is just a side effect.”

Heero laughs, freely, at ease. “So this is a year’s worth of conversation, isn’t it?”

“Maybe so, but I’m glad when we do cross paths. Gives me time to save it all up for the big finale.” Trowa sighs against his shoulder, tightens his hold around his torso. “Gotta build the tension for the right moment.”

There’s quiet as Heero pets his back, feels him still half-hard against his leg. “Do you have bad memories of Marseilles?”

“No.” Trowa shakes his head against his chest. “It’s where I learned what you were calling yourself. I knew I wanted to know more about you, whatever you would tell me.” 

“Thank you for letting me stay in your life,” Heero says, without metaphor. “Maybe we should become tidally locked.”

There’s a possibility, then, of collimated orbits, of corrected coma unrelated to the Glasgow scale, of adjusted breath resonating at a harmonic. If their lives have been tinkered with from the start, there’s time enough now for them to assert their right to repair.

It’s Trowa’s turn to laugh, pressing his fingertips to Heero’s ribs like osseous keywork. “Yeah? You never know what’ll wash up with the tide.”

Heero sighs, releases any remaining tension he was holding, and rests his hands on Trowa’s shoulder blades, which rise and fall while he breathes.

With the lights low, with the sun set, they lie curled together on the couch, carried to sleep in an inversion of the prototypes they piloted, carried back to back into battle, reflecting what they give to one another and protected from whatever may approach.

* * *

> _Although I admire it in a seasick way, a lot of my bravery in my teens and early twenties came from a place of self-loathing. I was able to push boundaries and take chances because I wasn’t very fussed about whether I came back alive. Oblivion was usually the goal._  
>  —[Florence Welch](https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/florence-welch-on-addiction-and-sobriety)

> _"What's your name," Coraline asked the cat. "Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?"_  
>  _"Cats don't have names," it said._  
>  _"No?" said Coraline._  
>  _"No," said the cat. "Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names."_  
>  —[Neil Gaiman](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoNeedForNames)


End file.
